Absolutely agree about Austin Powers. I should add all the James Bond movies to the list of the worst.
Other nominees:
SOPHIE'S CHOICE, if only because you have to listen to Meryl Streep speaking three diffrent languages and acting badly in all threee
THE ENGLISH PATIENT, pretentious caca
PULP FICTION, the most overrated American film of the past 20 years--why not include it on this list???
Nell
The Deep (the first film i walked out of)
Ishtar was fine film in comparison to those two. <shuddering at the thought of stumbling across either on t.v. - maybe that's why i rarely turn the t.v. on>
ehBeth, I'm with you on "Nell", I think it's definitely one of the most worst films I've ever seen!
First Family.
An atrociously insipid waste of celluloid.
I think it was a Disney film with Bob Newhart as the President and an obscenely pedestrian group of robotons as his dysfunctional family.
My brain still hurts from having seen it.
And it was over 20 years ago....
I checked my IMDB voting history for anything that I gave a "1". Good God, these are some horrible movies and I have to admit that I paid good money to watch them:
Battlefield Earth (Though it was kinda fun mocking John Travolta)
Event Horizon (Truly vile)
Jaws: The Revenge (Words fail me)
Mars Attacks! (I know some people love it, but I despised it)
The Master of Disguise (I am not turtlely enough for the Turtle Club)
Popeye (Have to wonder if Larry R will come to Altman's defense on this mess)
The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (I have a thing for Renee Z)
Teen Wolf Too (I have no excuse)
You have my condolences for paying to see "Battlefield Earth." I think I would have been tempted to hire a hit man to do away with Travolta for that one (maybe he'd even look like Travolta in "Pulp Fiction"). The pulp sci-fi novel it was taken from makes one truly suspicious of anything L. Ron Hubbard or Dianetics. He should have self-diagnosed himself and realized that he was writing juvenile trash instead of trying to cure people of their neurosis by making them "clear." Certainly easy to see through.
As far as "Popeye," Altman outdid himself in banality the year before with "Quintet," his attestment that he should stay a million light years away from sci-fi. The symbolism in that film was tantamount to a sophmorish exercise in some cheap grifter's ploy.
Heading the list of all time worst movies ever viewed by me on television is Shock Waves, in which "tourists to the Carribbean discover mutant Nazi zombies." You can sing the words, "mutant Nazi zombies" to a conga rhythm and I have done so for years. Frankly, the mutant Nazi zombies made me want to see the dumb thing but they were a big disappointment -- some blonde guys wearing sharkskin suits and sunglasses, marching single file but not goosestepping all over the place.
The worst movie I ever saw in the theatre may be The Fastest Guitar in the West, starring Roy Orbison (yes, that Roy Orbison) as the security guard on a stage coach, armed with an electric guitar straight out of James Bond's workshop...the movie was, of course, set in the 1890s.
Have to say that near runners-up are two movies people generally rave about: The Matrix and You've Got Mail.
It is in the category of SF that some of the worst cinematic monstrosities have been created. No coincidence that Ed Woods chose this as his oeuvre!
I watched "Sphere" on video and I'm glad that I didn't pay full price at the cinema. It made no sense what so ever, I am never planning to read the book to see if there has a viable plot there. Same for 'Event Horizon', total BS.
Yeah, Mr. S, the book Sphere was lame, and the movie was lamer. Someone will have to pay me to see another Sharon Stone movie.
POPEYE was pretty bad, I remember walking out of it in fact. God knows Altman has made his share of turkeys--but he has also made some of the best movies I have ever seen, so I have to say that his achievements outweigh his flops. Any director who can make MASH, McCABE AND MRS MILLER, THIEVES LIKE US, CALIFORNIA SPLIT, NASHVILLE, THE LONG GOODBYE, VINCENT AND THEO, THE PLAYER, SHORT CUTS, COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, KANSAS CITY, GOSFORD PARK, 3 WOMEN, to name only some of his best movies, can be pardoned a few flops.
I remember when Popeye came out...I was a first time mother then and movies for home use were large discs, like old LP records. I saw Popeye on one of those machines on a flat disc, loaned by a friend. I liked it. Had to see it twice to "get" it, however. Maybe I liked it because when I was growing up, the Windsor, Ontario station showed Popeye cartoons.
I loved his movie based on the Raymond Carver stories. One of my closest friends couldn't figure out what it was about, but I thought it was about taking personal responsibility.
Hated McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Ditto Two or Three or However Many Women. Liked the fashion show movie immensely.
plainoldme:
"mutant Nazi zombies" that sounds pretty good to me as long as it was really bad.
My pick for one of the worst:
"Charlie's Angels" (2000) and I shiver to think another is coming in 2003.
couzz,
Believ me, the mutant Nazi zombie movie stank!!! The worst thing was it began airing at midnight and I was the mother of a toddler and a newborn! What a morning I had!
